Dental Insurance that is reasonably priced?

freeyaeco

NHS is too cheap to provide good quality, everyone knows it no one says it. Private dentistry you don't know what you get, but you'll have a better chance of being treated well enough, but obviously you will have dentists just looking for money and no ethics.

The system I want is one where you are registered with your dentist and pay him monthly, with a limit to the number of patients a dentist can have. No exclusions whatsoever, everything related to teeth is taken care of. So the less he sees you the better off he is. And there is only one way not to see patients, provide good quality and have good prevention set up. I won't go into the details to much, but with that type of system the dentist actually earns more (or works less depends) the healthier you are, so you share common interest. Sure some don't need the cover and it would be slightly expensive (around 40£/month) but you never know what could happen, you might end up needing it, your kids might need ortho etc... A nice statistic : only 17% of people above 65 have healthy gums... Gives you an idea.

BucksLady

Freeyaeco, I think your system might be flawed. Dentists' would probably welcome patients like myself who don't have any fillings etc, but people who have troublesome teeth wouldn't be welcome for all the obvious reasons. However, in principle, I do like your suggestion.

justme111

freeyaeco wrote: »

Yes I'm saying it is a gigantic difference : A 3 to 4 times higher risk of failure. You call that not a drastic difference?

I really really disagree with what you say. It's as if we practice totally different dentistry, it's incredible. Scaling is an imperative for most people, if you let calculus accumulate you get people more prone to gum disease. The only thing I am OK with in your speech is that for most a yearly visit is sufficient.

You underestimate risks a big deal! ww w . hscic . gov . uk/pubs/dentalsurveyfullreport09 (I put spaces because I can't post urls.) have a look at the statistics!

The problem is not what it costs when everything goes according to plan. The problem is what happens if anything goes wrong?
Same thing with your car insurance, if you drive well it shouldn't pay for much, yet it still costs a lot, because it covers for the unexpected!
That's the key, being covered for the unexpected!

And most 26000£ earners are not able to pay straight up a 2000£ or more treatment they could need (one tooth having to get extracted, look at the statistics), and what happens? The patient can't get his implant -> the teeth move are harder to brush -> cavities, calculus -> needs more fillings, more RCTs more crowns, or even perio, or ortho -> ends up costing a lot. Why? because he isn't covered for implants (just an example). Of course it's over a long period of time (3-5 years), but in my experience, a patient who can't afford the treatment right now, just tells himself it's out of his range and forgets about it, most will never save up to have it done.

Back to square one - issue of attitude , not money if people who can not afford it outright on a spot don't save for it and tell themselves its out of their reach.


So all those nasties that happen if simetgig left untreated for 5 years are irrelevant , even they were real and not academical. Sure sure , if a gap after tooth extraction is left for 5 years than all the other teeth became wobbly and fallen out - of course there is marginal detriment from remaining teeth bearing more load andoving fraction of a milimiter per year but in.practice its more academical and is far cry from deducting private dental care is unaffordable .

Re success rate of rcts - you quoted 97% versus 93 % ,where is it twofold ?
Re needing removal if hard deposits - what you saying goes against what I seen in.practice for years , my personal experience and some articles.

Repeating myself - yes its better to be able to afford all and now and the best , does not happen in real life in most circumstances though and does not mean that if someone can not do it then it is unaffordable.

justme111

welshdent wrote: »

We should probably stop driving cars too. My last service was £200 and I spend about 50 a week on fuel. That's a second hand 1 series BMW. Nothing at all fancy. Assuming I get 2 services a year, that alone is more than 2 Check ups and 2 scale and polishes. And don't throw the BMW argument at me as I know of dental nurses that have owned them and they are in the salary brackets, possibly lower that are being referred to

Absolutely , I have Porsche and spent a few thousands on it last year , cars are unaffordable ! (Just in case some switched their sense of humour of - it is an analogy , I don't have one and when I personally needed implants I waited 5 years on one occasion and one year on another)

justme111

So them being on your plan will assure they have healthy gums ?
we all seen denplan care patients (who are on a plan similar to what you suggest) and some of us work with it so we have our opinion re comparative dental fitness of those and pay as you go private ones , good luck with your endevour , not sure there is a point in trying to convince us how useful d viable your plan will be.

nineteenseventyseven

Maintaining an NHS service that is "available to everyone" is all about political point scoring. No political party wants to admit that it is not possible to provide an all encompassing service of high quality to the whole population. By having a basic, core NHS service available to those who can not afford private care - either fee per item of insurance / capitation based would benefit everyone.

The current NHS payment system is complex with low fees paid but the advantage of grants and decent pension plans. Most NHS dentists need to charge higher private fees to subsidise the NHS treatments which loose them money ( ie molar RCT ) . I realise that some NHS dentists refuse to do these treatments which goes against their contractural agreements - that is another story though. If there was only a very limited NHS service, you would get a proper free market where every dental practice is on a level playing field. You would remove the dodgy relationship between PCTs and corporates like IDH. Practices could charge what they wish. Patients could then make informed choices. Average private fees would come down. Top end practices with dental specialist and top of the range equipment would charge premiums. City centre locations may cost more that practices in cheaper suburbs where premises are cheaper. Patients could chose if they want a cheap and cheerful practice where work is completed quickly in the same way to a good NHS practice. Others would choose to pay more to allow the dentist to spend more time discussing and performing treatment and allowing access to a hygienist. Others would wish to go to the "Dental Spa" type of place because they want to feel pampered. Each to their own, dependant on finance, wishes and expectations. Practices that were uncompetitive - either charging too much, providing a poor level of treatment or service would lose patients and would then have to address the reasons why they are no longer busy. There would no longer be the practices that promote the fact that they are taking on NHS patients to bring them through the door, only to then spend all their time talking everyone into private options.

justme111

Ditto
....

freeyaeco

Justme : going from 98% to 93% rate means you have a 2% failure against 7% which is 3 to 4 times more. Increase of risk threefold if you will.
Denplan is flawed in so many ways. First of all you have to be "dentally fit" to enter, second really GIGANTIC FLAW you can send your patient wherever once problems start getting big : your patient needs several RCTs, a big perio surgery, an implant or his wisdom teeth removed : you send to "the specialist", meaning basically you won't take care of the problem (you have way too many specialists here! In france we have Orthos and GPs and that's it!). In my system the specialists are included, so if your patient needs big stuff, meaning you failed, you actually lose money from it, very different from denplan.

BucksLady : In my system I wouldn't care much for the previous treatment done on the patient. One fee for all, which is meant to cover for the yearly cost of the practice plus salary. Easily calculable and calculated. The variables actually don't make such a difference in the yearly cost, what costs most is rent and personnel (and taxes) the rest only varies a little. So a maximum amount of patients per dentist (you don't want to go too high to have enough time to treat every one correctly) share the cost of the practice, solidarity if you will.
Everyone knows how much it's going to cost and no surprises. Clear and simple. I'd have to get started with both healthy and "sick" (understand neading treatment) people, so I'd target businesses at first, but on the long term it wouldn't matter. The patient's dental history doesn't matter so much either. Denplan cheats by taking most of the risk out of the equation beforehand. An insurer refusing to cover the risk... Weird. In France we have a 3-6 month period before you can claim, which seems fair, and works just fine.

Justme : In my system I'd have a better percentage yes, because people could get treated for their problems, and I'd have a huge emphasis on prevention because that's the most important part if I don't want to lose money! I'd have penalties for patients who didn't come in a long time (yearly visit at least) and need treatment.

It would be a big shift in patient/dentist relationship, the less I'd do, the more I'd earn (or the more free time I would have), the healthier the patient the happier the dentist!

I'm not trying to convince you, I'll convince people in my neighborhood. I arrived less than a month ago, and I am appalled by the poor level of oral health. In Britain dentistry is a 6 Billion/year market and people find it very expensive to treat themselves well, in France it's a 10 Billion (same population) and people can afford private care... The main difference ? People have insurances, and good ones! Your level of cover is way insufficient!

justme111

Indeed , and if success rate was 99,9% and 98,9% the increase would be twofold as well , will you honestly think that these numbers price that private dental care is unaffordable because many people can not do it with 99% rate but have to accept 98% one , an awfull twofold increase in risk ?:D

Your theory about insurance does sound good actually though. Would be interesting to see what premium cost would you come up with , my gut feeling is that it would be too high but then I am not a business person ..

Now , on.topic of insurances - I believe they are needed if the event is of extremely high impact , ie cost of which may ruin one for the whole life , like payout in a bad accident etc. If it is a couple of hundreeds?thousands pounds it makes sense to self ensure because it is ALWAYS will beore expensive with insurance since company that provides one with it needs to make a profit.
I understanrd for each particular individual it will vary and there will be some for whom insurance like you have in mind can be benefitial.

ripplyuk

I wish I could find an insurance scheme that covered dental accident and oral cancer only. All the insurance policy's I've found have covered more than that but have low yearly limits or only cover 50% of routine costs and I think I'd prefer to self-insure for that.

I look after my teeth but as a child, I wasn't so careful about it. So, I have two big molar fillings, one a root canal which had to be re-treated recently. It was very expensive but I was very keen to save the tooth.

What surprised me is that my NHS dentist didn't even mention that there was any other option than extraction. It was only when I said I wanted to keep the tooth that he referred me to an endodontist. Even the secretaries at the practice said to me "Why pay all that money when you can have it extracted here for around £50".

In Northern Ireland, everything seems to have to be pre- approved by "the board" which can take forever, if they agree at all. After a lot of reading, I've realised that NHS dentistry here is really about extractions/cheap dentures and not preventative dentistry.

I really feel horrified about it because, like a lot of people, I have not got the money for either fully comprehensive insurance or a lot of private dental treatment and there is no safety net, unless I'm happy with acrylic dentures!